Bridge Organizations

Happy Holidays!

New Monday night non-Life Master game starts Jan. 7, San Marino Club

Taking a year off to celebrate

Normally at this time of year I would be announcing my class and event schedule for the coming season.

Jane and I have decided to pull the plugs on our day jobs. She's finishing up at the end of November at JPL, and I'm joining her from DreamWorks Animation at the end of February. It's a slightly scary and exciting thing to do.

We've decided to take 2019 for ourselves. We want to have lots of unstructured time: take mid-week astronomy excursions to the desert, play tons of bridge, go to all the big tournaments, and listen to lots of live classical music and jazz.

We're taking a sabbatical year with very few firm commitments.

Closing the Monday night bridge club

December 17 will be the last scheduled game for the BridgeMojo Monday night club. Let's make it a game and a party.

Just prior to Christmas, Jane and I made our first visit on a trek to out-of-town bridge clubs, researching what works and what doesn't. We played an open game on Christmas Eve at the In Tempo Bridge Club in Scottsdale, AZ.

For those of us accustomed to smaller clubs, this one seems enormous! With very comfortable spacing between the tables, this former gymnasium was set up for a full sixty tables. It reminds me of the size of the InBetween club in Sarasota, FL, and I'm sure many of the other large Florida clubs are at least this size. Our game was a lightly-attended holiday game of sixteen tables.

The top winners this month were Tor Hylbom and Richard Gero with 1.48, followed closely by Will and Ileana Shaw with 1.28.

This month I ran games for the North American Pairs first Unit Final, and those results were mingled in with the BridgeMojo results. It was interesting seeing those large numbers of additional masterpoints being awarded. I was unable to filter the report down to number of individual players at the Monday Night game. (I'll have the same problem in November!)

Come play at the Pasadena/San Gabriel Unit Game!

November 4, San Marino Bridge Club
1800 Huntington Drive, San Marino
Game time 1:00 p.m.
Lunch 12:30 p.m.

The monthly Pasadena/San Gabriel Unit Game has been one of the best-attended and delightful bridge games in L.A. The finest players from the district drop in for a great free lunch and a relaxed Sunday afternoon of bridge.

Indeed the field could be a bit intimidating for newer players, even with friendly opponents, but it's a wonderful way to improve your game and make new friends!

The unit is now offering a separate game for players under 500 masterpoints — 499ers. It's the same great food, same great location, and even the same hands as the Open Pairs. The playing field is your peer group in bridge experience, with stratified scoring.

Unit games award not quite as many (black) masterpoints as a sectional tournament, and way more than a regular club game.

Hilary Clark and Rosemary Schroeder were the top winners (again!) this month with 1.26. Close behind was Angela Peters with 1.25.

I'll remember September 2018 as the month when 110 folks came to the Laemmle in Pasadena to see a screening of the bridge documentary Double Dummy and meet the filmmaker John McAllister. :) Thank you all!

Double Dummy introduces us to the world of bridge that we know and love, then takes us into the unfamiliar, exciting world of youth bridge. The film follows the adventures of several young players as they compete in the 2012 World Youth Bridge Team Championship, which the U.S. team had never won.